The precedent of Grutter v. Bollinger should allow these plans to stand because they are serving educational, democratic, and remedial purposes. And Swann, McDaniel, Crawford, North Carolina Bd. Franklin was integration positive because its nonwhite enrollment the previous school year was greater than 69 percent; 89 more white students were assigned to Franklin by operation of the racial tiebreaker in the 20002001 school year than otherwise would have been. The Courts misuse of the three-tiered approach to Equal Protection analysis merely reconfirms my own view that there is only one such Clause in the Constitution. No. The view that a more lenient standard than strict scrutiny should apply in the present context would not imply abandonment of judicial efforts carefully to determine the need for race-conscious criteria and the criterias tailoring in light of the need. Once those vestiges were eliminated, Jefferson County was on the same footing as any other school district, and its use of race must be justified on other grounds. School boards may pursue the goal of bringing together students of diverse backgrounds and races through other means, including strategic site selection of new schools; drawing attendance zones with general recognition of the demographics of neighborhoods; allocating resources for special programs; recruiting students and faculty in a targeted fashion; and tracking enrollments, performance, and other statistics by race. Prior to Grutter, the courts of appeals rejected as unconstitutional attempts to implement race-based assignment planssuch as the plans at issue herein primary and secondary schools. The classification of applicants by race upheld in Grutter was only as part of a highly individualized, holistic review, 539 U. S., at 337. in Brown I, p. 7 (Robert L. Carter, Dec. 9, 1952). Primary Documents: (Slip Opinion) December 4, 2006, Argued June 28, 2007, * Decided SYLLABUS: Respondent school districts voluntarily adopted student assignment plans that rely on race to determine which schools certain children may attend. Assessed in any objective manner, there is no comparison between the two. A. Croson Co., 488 U. S. 469 (1989); Shaw v. Reno, 509 U. S. 630 (1993); Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peńa, 515 U. S. 200 (1995); Grutter, supra; Gratz v. Bollinger, 539 U. S. 244 (2003); Johnson v. California, 543 U. S. 499 (2005). Resort to the record, including the parties Stipulation of Facts, further confuses the matter. Having looked at dozens of amicus briefs, public reports, news stories, and the records in many of this Courts prior cases, which together span 50 years of desegregation history in school districts across the Nation, I have discovered many examples of districts that sought integration through explicitly race-conscious methods, including mandatory busing. Likewise, a district may consider it a compelling interest to achieve a diverse student population. 2d 1224, 1240 (WD Wash. 2001) (Parents Involved I). In a separate conference, JCPS Representative Pat Todd emphasized that the current assignment plan would remain in effect for the 20072008 school year, citing the finalization of budgets, staffing, assignments and busing as prevailing reasons for no change being logistically possible. It is reasonable to conclude that such resegregation can create serious educational, social, and civic problems. The school districts in these cases have not carried the heavy burden of demonstrating that we should allow this once againeven for very different reasons. See Education Commission of the States, Open Enrollment: 50-State Report (2007), online at http://mb2.ecs.org/reports/Report.aspx?id=268. See post, at 6972. Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U. S. 81, 100 (1943) ([R]acial discriminations are in most circumstances irrelevant and therefore prohibited). Compare post, at 3, 2228, with Brief for Respondents in No. of Ed., 439 U. S. 1380, 1383 (1978) (opinion in chambers), making clear that he too believed that Swanns statement reflected settled law: While I have the gravest doubts that [a state supreme court] was required by the United States Constitution to take the [desegregation] action that it has taken in this case, I have very little doubt that it was permitted by that Constitution to take such action. (Emphasis in original.). I have long adhered to the view that a decision to exclude a member of a minority because of his race is fundamentally different from a decision to include a member of a minority for that reason. The Seattle school district has tried a variety of plans over the past several decades to prevent the de-facto segregation that would occur if students were assigned to schools on a purely geographic basis. No. One will search Grutter in vain for similarly persuasive evidence of narrow tailoring as the school districts have presented here. 90a92a. See Brief for Petitioner at 45. Most white families live north of the downtown area where four high schoolsBallard, Ingraham, Nathan Hale, and Rooseveltare located. Not everyone welcomed this Courts decision in Brown. The student could then choose among those schools, indicating a first choice, and other choices the student found acceptable. in No. See Board of Ed. For example, one study documented that black and white students in desegregated schools are less racially prejudiced than those in segregated schools, and that interracial contact in desegregated schools leads to an increase in interracial sociability and friendship. Hallinan 745. These include the facially race-neutral means set forth above or, if necessary, a more nuanced, individual evaluation of school needs and student characteristics that might include race as a component. Gratz, supra, at 301 (Ginsburg, J., dissenting); Adarand, supra, at 243 (Stevens, J., dissenting); Carter, When Victims Happen To Be Black, 97 Yale L.J. It also argues that these plans can be justified as part of the school boards attempts to eradicat[e] earlier school segregation. See, e.g., post, at 4. On the matter of stare decisis, I submit that the duration of the challenged practice, while it is persuasive, is not controlling. First, the school districts plans serve compelling interests and are narrowly tailored on any reasonable definition of those terms. Even supposing it mattered to the constitutional analysis, the race-based student assignment programs before us are not as benign as the dissent believes. Second, broad-range limits on voluntary school choice plans are less burdensome, and hence more narrowly tailored, see Grutter, supra, at 341, than other race-conscious restrictions this Court has previously approved. Compare Brief for Kansas on Reargument in Brown v. Board of Education, O.T. 1953, No. To do so provides further reason to believe that the pluralitys approach is legally unsound. See ibid. See also Freeman, supra, at 495496; Dowell, 498 U. S., at 248; Milliken v. Bradley, 418 U. S. 717, 746 (1974). Today, however, the Court restricts (and some Members would eliminate) that leeway. Although remedying the effects of past intentional discrimination is a compelling interest under the strict scrutiny test, see Freeman v. Pitts, 503 U. S. 467, 494, that interest is not involved here because the Seattle schools were never segregated by law nor subject to court-ordered desegregation, and the desegregation decree to which the Jefferson County schools were previously subject has been dissolved. Our Nation from the inception has sought to preserve and expand the promise of liberty and equality on which it was founded. In 2007, the United States Supreme Court struck down two local school board initiatives meant to reverse extreme racial segregation in public schools. The original litigation eventually became a lawsuit against the Jefferson County School System, which in April 1975 absorbed Louisvilles schools and combined them with those of the surrounding suburbs. 3, p.17 (The Court is dealing with thousands of local school districts and schools. App. of Boston v. Board of Ed., 352 Mass. Cf. However, Seattle did not have a history of racially segregated schools. While the County had been under a desegregation order from 1975 to 2000, this order had been dissolved when a federal judge found that it had largely solved the problem of segregated schools. Assigning to each student a personal designation according to a crude system of individual racial classifications is quite a different matter; and the legal analysis changes accordingly. In a typical year, say, 1995, about 20,000 potential high school students participated. I write separately to address several of the contentions in Justice Breyers dissent (hereinafter the dissent). As the Court explained, [t]he importance of this individualized consideration in the context of a race-conscious admissions program is paramount. Ibid. The Courts holding in Grutter demonstrates that the Court meant what it said, for the Court upheld an elite law schools race-conscious admissions program. App. Meredith brought suit in the Western District of Kentucky, alleging violations of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Therefore, it is not nearly as apparent as the dissent suggests that increased interracial exposure automatically leads to improved racial attitudes or race relations. The Constitution generally prohibits government race-based decisionmaking, but this Court has authorized the use of race-based measures for remedial purposes in two narrowly defined circumstances. Simply because the school districts may seek a worthy goal does not mean they are free to discriminate on the basis of race to achieve it, or that their racial classifications should be subject to less exacting scrutiny. of Los Angeles, 458 U. S. 527, 535536 (1982) ([S]tate courts of California continue to have an obligation under state law to order segregated school districts to use voluntary desegregation techniques, whether or not there has been a finding of intentional segregation. Students may also apply to a magnet school or program, or, at the high school level, take advantage of an open enrollment plan that allows ninth-grade students to apply for admission to any nonmagnet high school. Post, at 22. First, no casenot Adarand, Gratz, Grutter, or any otherhas ever held that the test of strict scrutiny means that all racial classificationsno matter whether they seek to include or excludemust in practice be treated the same. The student population of the school district is approximately 40% white, 60% non-white. See Grutter 539 U.S. at 330. Further, for all the lower court cases Justice Breyer cites as evidence of the prevailing legal assumption embodied by Swann, very few are pertinent. No. That is particularly true given that, when Swann was decided, this Court had not yet confirmed that strict scrutiny applies to racial classifications like those before us. The Constitution and our precedents require more. 1819 (The truth of the matter is that this is an attempt to place local mores and customs above the high equalitarian principles of our Government as set forth in our Constitution and particularly the Fourteenth Amendment. See, e.g., Brief for Respondents in No. For his part, Justice Thomas faults my citation of various studies supporting the view that school districts can find compelling educational and civic interests in integrating their public schools. [Footnote 25] And just as the dissent argues that the need for these programs will lessen over time, the segregationists claimed that reliance on segregation was lessening and might eventually end. Parents of students denied assignment to particular schools under these plans solely because of their race and brought suit, arguing that allocating children to different public schools on the basis of race violated the Fourteenth Amendment guarantee of equal protection. R. Kluger, Simple Justice: The History of Brown v. Board of Education and Black Americas Struggle for Equality, p. x (1975) (arguing that perhaps no other Supreme Court case has affected more directly the minds, hearts, and daily lives of so many Americans); Patterson, Brown v. Board of Education xxvii (2001) (identifying Brown as the most eagerly awaited and dramatic judicial decision of modern times). See Lochner v. New York, 198 U. S. 45, 75 (1905) (Holmes, J., dissenting) (The Fourteenth Amendment does not enact Mr. Herbert Spencers Social Statics). At the time, however, Young Elementary was 46.8 percent black. If so, its interpretation threatens to produce divisiveness among minority groups that is incompatible with the basic objectives of the Fourteenth Amendment. Finally, it lists several race-neutral alternatives that were considered (such as a lottery system, the use of poverty as a proxy for race, and regional assignments) and argues that they would not have been as effective as the plan that is the subject of this litigation. 05908, pp. Third, there is a democratic element: an interest in producing an educational environment that reflects the pluralistic society in which our children will live. Just prior to the plans implementation, for example, 4 of Seattles 11 high schools were imbalanced, i.e., almost exclusively black or almost exclusively white. By 1979, only two were out of balance. By 1980 only Cleveland remained out of balance (as the board defined it) and that by a mere two students. If that is so, then all of Seattles earlier (even more race-conscious) plans must also have been unconstitutional. of Ed. 1725, 2841. The District further points to the line of Supreme Court cases requiring that schools desegregate even when such segregation was simply the effect of where the districts boundaries were drawn. Therefore, as a general rule, all race-based government decisionmakingregardless of contextis unconstitutional. tutional Provisions in the States Where Segregation in Education is Institutionalized). Second, the distinction between de jure segregation (caused by school systems) and de facto segregation (caused, e.g., by housing patterns or generalized societal discrimination) is meaningless in the present context, thereby dooming the pluralitys endeavor to find support for its views in that distinction. In the 20002001 school year, for example, with the racial tiebreaker, the entering ninth grade class at Franklin High School had a 60% minority population; without the racial tiebreaker that same class at Franklin would have had an almost 80% minority population. 36, 71 (1872) ([N]o one can fail to be impressed with the one pervading purpose found in [all the Reconstruction amendments] . Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration and [Footnote 16]. That necessary implication of the pluralitys position strikes the 13th chime of the clock. 1922). 05908, at 286a. See Beard v. Banks, 548 U. S. ___, ___ (2006) (Thomas, J., concurring in judgment) (noting that two were killed and hundreds were injured in race rioting subsequent to this Courts decision in Johnson). Id., at 240 (Thomas, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment) (As far as the Constitution is concerned, it is irrelevant whether a governments racial classifications are drawn by those who wish to oppress a race or by those who have a sincere desire to help those thought to be disadvantaged). We rely, as did the lower courts, largely on data from the 20002001 school year in evaluating the plan. Finally, the kind of deference that the Supreme Court will give the School District will also have implications. I have explained why I do not believe the Constitution could possibly find compelling the provision of a racially diverse education for a 23-year-old law student but not for a 13-year-old high school pupil. The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. 17, 48 (1978). Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. of Oral Arg. The Court rejected the interests asserted to justify the layoff program as insufficiently compelling. As McDaniel and Harris show, that is historically untrue. Again, neither school board asserts that its race-based actions were taken to remedy prior discrimination. In Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle (2007), the United States Supreme Court found that the school district was using race in an unconstitutional manner in its assignment plan. Therefore, even supposing interracial contact leads directly to improvements in racial attitudes and race relations, a program that assigns students of different races to the same schools might not capture those benefits. Richmond v. J. As well, the District points out that it is no longer using the admission system that serves as the basis of this suit, and has not for several years, further demonstrating that any future injury is far from imminent. So, I doubt not, it will continue to be for all time . These plans are more narrowly tailored than the race-conscious law school admissions criteria at issue in Grutter. In order to create a numerical racial balance among its 10 public high schools, the Seattle School District assigned students among them. The bulk of the data in the record was collected using the 10 percent band, see n. 1, supra. The respondents raised this issue in their brief opposing the grant of certiorari. Id. 1, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Parents_Involved_in_Community_Schools_v._Seattle_School_District_No._1&oldid=1137632337. Their decision leaves thousands Parents Involved in Community Schools (PICS) (plaintiff) were parents of students denied assignment to particular schools under these plans solely because of their race. Student Choice and Project Renaissance, 1991 to 1996. The school district met its percentage goals by assigning to the new mixed school an appropriate number of black housing blocks and white housing blocks. This Courts opinion in McDaniel v. Barresi, 402 U. S. 39 (1971), fits comfortably within this framework. In administering public schools, it is permissible to consider the schools racial makeup and adopt general policies to encourage a diverse student body, one aspect of which is its racial composition. See Parents Involved VII, 426 F.3d, at 1166; McFarland II, 416 F.3d, at 514; Comfort v. Lynn School Comm., 418 F.3d 1, 13 (CA1 2005). The wide variety of different integration plans that school districts use throughout the Nation suggests that the problem of racial segregation in schools, including de facto segregation, is difficult to solve. I shall apply the version of strict scrutiny that those cases embody. The pluralitys position, I fear, would break that promise. No. Seattle School District No. 1 Hampton I, supra, at 757758, 762; Newburg Area Council, Inc. v. Board of Ed. See, e.g., n.1, supra. For several decades this Court has rested its public school decisions upon Swanns basic view that the Constitution grants local school districts a significant degree of leeway where the inclusive use of race-conscious criteria is at issue. [Footnote 3] The only justification for refusing to acknowledge the obvious importance of that difference is the citation of a few recent opinionsnone of which even approached unanimitygrandly proclaiming that all racial classifications must be analyzed under strict scrutiny. See, e.g., Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peńa, 515 U. S. 200, 227 (1995). Accepting racial balancing as a compelling state interest would justify the imposition of racial proportionality throughout American society, contrary to our repeated recognition that [a]t the heart of the Constitutions guarantee of equal protection lies the simple command that the Government must treat citizens as individuals, not as simply components of a racial, religious, sexual or national class. Miller v. Johnson, 515 U. S. 900, 911 (1995) (quoting Metro Broadcasting, 497 U. S., at 602 (OConnor, J., dissenting); internal quotation marks omitted). 252, 42 U. S.C. 2000d. App. The State must seek alternatives to the classification and differential treatment of individuals by race, at least absent some extraordinary showing not present here. At the same time, these compelling interests, in my view, do help inform the present inquiry. 1, 2, and 4 p.65 (That the Constitution is color blind is our dedicated belief); Brief for Appellants in Brown v. Board of Education, O.T. 1952, No. To McDaniel? In the districts public schools approximately 41 percent of enrolled students are white; the remaining 59 percent, comprising all other racial groups, are classified by Seattle for assignment purposes as nonwhite. "[11] Accepting racial balancing as a compelling state interest would justify imposing racial proportionality throughout American society, contrary to the Courts repeated admonitions that this is unconstitutional. And it thereby required, for example, all fourth grade students from the previously black and previously white schools first to attend together what would now be a mixed fourth grade at one of the school buildings and then the next year to attend what would now be a mixed fifth grade at the other school building. Thus, the dissent argues that [e]ach plan embodies the results of local experience and community consultation. Post, at 47. Similarly, of the 1,461 black students enrolled in the 12 senior high schools in Seattle, 1,151 (or 78.8%) attended 3 senior high schools, and 900 (61.6%) attended a single school, Garfield. Code Ann. See Brief Amicus Curiae of the Black Womens Lawyers Association of Greater Chicago, Inc. in Support of Respondents at 16. ERIC - EJ779225 - The Public Schools and the Challenge of the Supreme in No. See Williamson v. Lee Optical of Okla., Inc., 348 U. S. 483, 488 (1955) (It is enough that there is an evil at hand for correction, and that it might be thought that the particular legislative measure was a rational way to correct it). Indeed, in McDaniel, a case decided the same day as Swann, a group of parents challenged a race-conscious student assignment plan that the Clarke County School Board had voluntarily adopted as a remedy without a court order (though under federal agency pressurepressure Seattle also encountered). 250, 251 (1983) (similar in Arkansas); Bullock Here Roberts provides the following string citation: Here, Roberts provides the following string cite: Id., at 337, 123 S. Ct. 2325, 156 L. Ed. k12. In 1995 and 1996, the Louisville School Board, with the help of a special Planning Team, community meetings, and other official and unofficial study groups, monitored the effects of Project Renaissance and considered proposals for improvement. [31], The opinion came less than two months before the start of the regular school year in King County and less than three weeks before the start of year-round school in the District. Contrary to the dissents arguments, resegregation is not occurring in Seattle or Louisville; these school boards have no present interest in remedying past segregation; and these race-based student-assignment programs do not serve any compelling state interest. Experience in Seattle and Louisville is consistent with experience elsewhere. Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. No one here disputes that Louisvilles segregation was de jure. I do not know of any opinion which buoyed Marshall more in his pre-Brown days ). 1. The second government interest we have recognized as compelling for purposes of strict scrutiny is the interest in diversity in higher education upheld in Grutter, 539 U. S., at 328. In addition, a ruling in PICSs favor will restrict the ability of school districts to combat de facto segregation. 1*, How are the Equal Protection rights of public high school students affected by the jurisprudence of. Such deference is fundamentally at odds with our equal protection jurisprudence. See Missouri v. Jenkins, 515 U. S. 70, 124125 (1995), (Thomas, J., concurring). This is because "'racial classifications are simply too pernicious to permit any but the most exact connection between justification and classification.'" Solved In Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle - Chegg Accord, post, at 48 ([L]ocal school boards better understand their own communities and have a better knowledge of what in practice will best meet the educational needs of their pupils); post, at 66 ([W]hat of respect for democratic local decisionmaking by States and school boards?); ibid. Of these, 209 were assigned to a school that was one of their choices, 87 of whom were assigned to the same school to which they would have been assigned without the racial tiebreaker. Finally, the outcome of this case will give some perspective into how the new composition of the Supreme Court views the still controversial issue of affirmative action. Another Connecticut regulation provides that [a]ny school in which the Proportion for the School falls outside of a range from 25 percentage points less to 25 percentage points more than the Comparable Proportion for the School District, shall be determined to be racially imbalanced. Conn. 294 F.3d 1085 (9th Cir. It nonetheless employs the racial tiebreaker in an attempt to address the effects of racially identifiable housing patterns on school assignments. Bustop, addressing in the context of an emergency injunction application a busing plan imposed by the Superior Court of Los Angeles County, is similarly unavailing. 05915, at 159, 147. See Grutter, 539 U.S. at 334; Gratz, 539 U.S. at 27071. v. Barksdale, 348 F.2d 261, 266 (CA1 1965). Any other approach would freeze the status quo that is the very target of all desegregation processes.). (We consider only the ninth grade since only students entering that class were subject to the tiebreaker, and because the plan was not in place long enough to change the composition of an entire school.)